Thoughts on Toys from the Co-Founder of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio

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Behind the scenes at the Today Show

We arrived to find an extremely busy and crowded green room. The boy band, The Wanted, was there getting ready. I was told that Colton from American Idol was also there. Rosie was upstairs getting ready for The Professionals segment. (Hey, I’m a former lawyer-doesn’t that count?) And yes, there was the 40 pound cat – that was unfortunately sharing the curtained off area where our toy testers were gathered. Only problem, I’m super allergic. So I stayed clear of the cat– who was really, really big!

Our testers started arriving. We had many today including twins (I got to hold Grace throughout most of the segment), sisters, brothers and best friends…all testers for the toyportfolio.

Today's Ann Curry with some of toy testers before our segment.

We headed upstairs to the studio for a “tease”–the part where they say “and coming up”….and you see the guest. We were waiting in the hallway outside of the studio when Ann Curry came by and was really wonderful with the kids. I’m not sure they really took in all that she was saying to them–but it was great advice about being proud of who you are, standing tall. After she left we played some games to make the time fly. Remember how hard waiting was when you were 9?

Many of our older toddlers and preschoolers found the Little Tikes Garden Discovery Center very interesting–each climbed in at one point! Leaving the babies on the outside. One of the babies got away–and found her way under the science toys. I looked down while Savannah was asking me a question and lo and behold there was baby Grace with a piece of paper in her mouth. I removed the paper and scooped her up– and thankfully she was happy doing the rest of the segment with us! It was the first time I did a segment with Savannah– two former lawyers having fun with toys! She was great and handled the controlled chaos with good humor! I’m also happy I had on my relatively high Jimmy Choo shoes.

After the segment, there’s always a mad dash to get out of the studio quickly! Here are two of our happy testers right after we were done.